Wednesday, July 27, 2016

A Small World

The irony is not lost on me that my very next post after my last one following Nice would be this one, the one where I note that it's a small world. It was made smaller for me and mine -- especially Eldest -- when he was out and about on his last day of "freedom" in Europe before he made the trek to Berlin for his study abroad session. He was in a biergarten in a happening place, joining thousands of others out on a Friday evening.

It's a small world, all right, as he discovered in Munich, caught up in the shooting that killed nine, all of those nine shot dead by a man younger than Eldest. He spent some time under a table and then in the company of many others watched over by armed police. Chaos for awhile, then a catnap on a mat in a gymnasium, a roll of toilet paper serving as a pillow, until transit opened up again and he made it back to his hotel around 4 a.m.

He's long gone from Munich and is in Berlin now for about a month, studying history and politics and the like while having encountered the making of history just a few days ago. He'll have a thrilling tale to share for the rest of his life. I just wish the tale would start with, "I was just a block away from one of the last mass shootings ever to occur."